Trump claims he is ‘much tougher on Russia than Obama’

Trump walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a summit in the Vietnamese city of Danang in November 2017. (JORGE SILVA/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump accused his predecessor of inaction against Russian election meddling on Tuesday, tweeting a hat tip to Fox News for outlining the Obama administration's "failures."

Trump, back at the White House following a long weekend at his Florida resort, parroted his favorite cable news channel as he compared himself to President Barack Obama.

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"I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts. Total Fake News!" he tweeted.

Trump, without once condemning Russia, has unleashed a fiery tweetstorm in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller unsealing indictments against 13 Russians and three Kremlin-linked companies for their alleged role in a campaign to influence Americans influence the 2016 election.

The Russian trolls worked, in part, to help get Trump elected, according to court papers.

Mueller is also tasked with determining whether anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.

The President, who has brazenly called for warmer relations with Moscow while downplaying the extent of Russian meddling, has denied any such connection.

He also blamed Obama for turning a blind eye to the interference.

I have been much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts. Total Fake News!

Trump reissued a common complaint, accusing his predecessor of ignoring Russian cyberattacks because he thought Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the election.

But Obama did take action against the Kremlin, imposing strong sanctions and expelling 35 diplomats from the U.S. in December 2016.

Trump accused Obama of mishandling relations with Russia, tipping his hat to Fox for laying out the not quite accurate information.

"Thank you to @foxandfriends for the great timeline on all of the failures the Obama Administration had against Russia, including Crimea, Syria and so much more. We are now starting to win again!" Trump tweeted.

Trump picked up where he left off, pushing a second Fox News report Tuesday night about an anti-Trump rally in Manhattan after his election.

"Bad ratings @CNN & @MSNBC got scammed when they covered the anti-Trump Russia rally wall-to-wall," Trump tweeted, referencing a part of Mueller's indictment that outlined how Russian operatives planned rivaling rallies in New York after the election. "They probably knew it was Fake News but, because it was a rally against me, they pushed it hard anyway."

Trump didn't mention the fact that the Russians also planned a pro-Trump rally in New York for the same day.

Trump said he’s tougher on Russia than Obama was — despite the fact that the latter imposed strong sanctions on the Kremlin while he was still in office. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Obama and European Union nations imposed harsh sanctions targeting senior Russian officials and businessmen connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin over its military intervention in Ukraine.

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The economic blocks were put in place after Russian troops seized Crimea from Ukraine. Obama expanded and extended the sanctions in 2016.

Trump, meanwhile, has resisted enforcing sanctions against Russia that were approved in a near unanimous vote in Congress last summer.

The President's disgraced national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during Trump's transition.

Flynn sought to assure the diplomat that Russia should not be concerned about dramatic sanctions Obama took in response to the election interference.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the adminsitration's efforts on Tuesday, telling reporters that Trump has "spent a lot of time working on cyber security, focusing on protecting the fairness on our elections."

She also attempted to walk back Trump's incendiary tweets linking the FBI not following up on calls regarding the 19year-old who killed 17 people at a Florida school and the Russia investigation.

"He's making the point that we would like our FBI agencies to not be focused on something that is clearly a hoax in terms of investigating the Trump campaign and its involvement," she said.